Frontline Aid Workers Fear the Impact of the USAID Freeze

TIME

The dominoes fell really fast. On Monday, Jan. 20, shortly after his inauguration, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order that called for a 90-day pause on new foreign-aid programs for efficiency and "consistency with U.S. foreign policy." The order got less attention than some of the others he signed that day but may have much more far-reaching effects.

Transcript

00:00I thought this was only going to deal with the U.S. agencies, that is, PEPFAR, CDC, USAID.

00:14But again, I went to find out that also some donors are now going to pull out resources

00:19because they were also receiving from the similar funding basket to sub-grant to us

00:24as the organizations decide.

00:27So if their funder has pulled out and is suspended because the letter was specifying that all

00:36these grants have been suspended for 90 days, USAID has been the biggest HIV funder.

00:42And I would say that a number of people, close to 20 million people, are receiving ARVs,

00:49ART treatment, testing services from the funds that USAID has been providing to us.

00:57And now, since they have pulled out, this suspension was immediate effectively.

01:05So that means if yesterday your employees had to come back the following day to office,

01:11you had to stop them because you had no money to continue with them.

01:15So we are now looking at an increase in infections, a decrease in suppression.

01:22We are looking at a decrease in care, and also many people are now going to become infected

01:29since they will no longer be able to access lubricants, condoms, self-testing kits.

01:45The world is without light. What is there to live for?

01:48Let them reconcile, let Trump or whoever they are, let them reconcile.

01:53Let your generation grow up.

01:56That's good.

01:59How will I raise my son?

02:02He's not my friend.

02:04What's going on here?

02:09Unfortunately, people are coming in a very critical state because for a long time

02:15people have been living without light, without any communication, without food and supplies.

02:20All this is happening during hostilities.

02:24Some are facing death of loved ones at this moment.

02:29They continue to live in basements.

02:31This is critical because there will be fewer people who will be able to provide help to people.

02:40I hope that this will not affect the situation, but maybe less help will be provided to people

02:47whom we can save.

02:49But at the moment, the evacuation trend continues.

02:56We are preparing for a possible increase.

02:59First of all, this is for Ukrainians, just like me.

03:03Many of us are of old age, like my grandmother and my grandfather.

03:09I can only imagine how important it is to save these people.

03:16Because if we can't save them, they will either die or become Russians.

03:21Forced to do so.

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